


Snapbacks And Curly, Pink hair

by Pollarize



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Car Accidents, Death, Funeral, M/M, Mental Breakdown, had to redeem myself, i cant tag anything to save my life, i guess you could say that, i wrote a happy story before this, im sorry, these tags are not accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollarize/pseuds/Pollarize
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn't really Tyler anymore, was he?</p>
<p>So, who was he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapbacks And Curly, Pink hair

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this was supposed to be. i wanted to write something happy but i found this one thing and then here we are

Josh picked up on the second ring.

 

“Hey, you still coming over for pizza and that Parks and Rec binge?” Tyler asked, lounging down on the couch and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table.

 

_ “Shit, I almost forgot, give me like thirty minutes to shower and then I’ll be there, okay?” _

 

Tyler hummed a response and hung up, deciding to order the pizza then.

 

~~~

 

Josh never made it. 

 

There was a drunk driver on the road that crashed head on with Josh. The police had said there was nothing Josh could have done to save himself. The drunk man was going too fast.

 

The pizza Tyler ordered never got eaten.

 

~~~

 

The funeral was short, most of the people there not able to sit and watch as a young boy was lowered into his grave. Josh was only nineteen. As one person who made a speech said, he should have had a long life full of joy and happiness, it was a shame to see such a beautiful soul leave so soon.

 

Tyler was thankful that it was short. He could feel with each minute passing his chest slowly compressing. He couldn’t breathe as he listened to the people share their thoughts, couldn’t see as he watched flowers be placed on top of the coffin. He sat there, though, because it was his best friend, he had promised he would be there until the end, but it wasn’t quite the end.

 

The coffin hit the ground with a soft thud and Tyler stood. He dusted nothing off of his suit pants and looked at the grass as it bent beneath his feet. 

 

He drove slowly to Josh’s house. There had been an offer to go through Josh’s possessions.

 

“We don’t need to keep most of that stuff,” Josh’s mother had said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

 

Tyler let himself into the house quietly, as he always did. Josh’s family looked up at him as he walked up the stairs, no one welcoming him the way that they’d done only a day before. He stepped into the messy room, clothes that could have been dirty or clean were strewn across the floor. 

 

_ Typical,  _ he thought as he stared.

 

Josh’s snapback was resting on top of one of the bed post and Tyler crossed the room, standing in front of it. His face was blank as he stared at the hat. It was plain black, the word ‘Vans’ written across the front of it. It was one of the hats Josh wore most often. Tyler picked it up and brought it to his eye level.

 

_ “Why do you always wear that one? It’s so plain,” Tyler asked, staring at the hat in his hands. Josh shrugged. _

 

_ “I can wear all my crazy colored clothes and it’ll still match,” Josh explained and Tyler scoffed. _

 

_ “Josh, you only ever wear black.” Josh wiggled his eyebrows and they both busted up in laughter.  _

 

Tyler wished he could laugh at the memory.

 

He walked over to the full length mirror that was propped against the wall and he stared at his reflection. Tyler watched as his hands reached up and placed the snapback on his head. It felt wrong on his head, looked wrong in the mirror, but it seemed like the thing he had to do. He didn’t know why. Tyler turned his gaze away and looked around the room.

 

He couldn’t explain why but his feet carried him forward to Josh’s closet. He was pulling out some of his t-shirts and a pair of his ripped black skinny jeans. He threw them into Josh’s backpack and took them with him, pulling out another snapback and then throwing the straps of the backpack over his shoulders as he walked down the stairs.

 

“Tyler,” Josh’s mom started. She’d been standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him. She reached a hand out to touch Tyler’s shoulders but he shrugged out of the way, looking at her. She was somewhat startled by the empty, dead look on his face.

 

“Don’t,” was all he said as he stepped around her and to the door. He opened it and had a foot out the door before he paused and looked back to where she stood.

 

“I’m sorry for your loss, he was a good kid,” Tyler said, meaning every word of it but he didn’t feel the words. 

 

After that day people started noticing the way Tyler wore around those snapbacks more and more often until it became part of what he wore everyday. It stopped feeling wrong when he pulled them on his head. 

 

He occasionally wore the shirts he took from Josh’s room. In a way it was comforting. It still smelled faintly of Josh. Up until it didn’t. Apparently Tyler wore the shirts too much.

~~~

 

He wasn’t sure when it switched in his mind. It all happened so slowly that he wasn’t really able to pinpoint exactly when it happened. He wasn’t even really consciously doing it.

 

One day he realized that Tyler didn’t really suit him. He wasn’t really Tyler anymore, was he? There had been a shift in him since the day that Josh died and Tyler wasn’t the same anymore.

 

So, who was he?

 

~~~

 

He had gone to a coffee shop to get something to drink one day.

 

“What’s the name for the order?” The cashier asked.

 

“Josh,” he said. The cashier looked up at him and smiled, she was trying to flirt.

 

“Josh, that’s a cute name,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He laughed, feeling the smile grow on his face. He nodded at her and stepped out of the line, taking a seat as he waited for his coffee.

 

He could feel her eyes on him every so often and he reached up nervously to play with his hair, running his fingers through the curly pink hair.

 

~~~

 

“Tyler,” his mom called. He didn’t respond.

 

“Tyler,” she said again and grew frustrated when he didn’t answer.

 

“Tyler!” She walked over that time and shook him, he looked up at her, startled that she was shaking him.

 

“What?” He asked, blinking at her.

 

“You weren’t answering when I called your name,” she explained, pursing her lips for a moment before her brief bit of anger dissipated.

 

“Sorry, mom,” he said honestly.

 

“Can you go to the store and pick up the turkey we’re having for dinner?” She asked and he nodded.

 

“Sure, mom.”

 

~~~

 

He sat on the floor of the bathroom, his back to the mirror. He was thinking of something to do that day, boredom was starting to seep into his bones.

 

“Maybe I’ll hang out with Tyler,” he said, frowning as he opened his eyes to look at the wall. He hadn’t seen Tyler for awhile. He felt a panic start to rise in his chest.

 

Josh stood up and ran down the stairs, running into the kitchen to find his mom whip around and place a hand over her chest.

 

“Honey, you scared me, what’s wrong?” She asked, putting down the whisk she had had in her hand.

 

“Where’s Tyler?” He asked, biting his lip after that to keep the stinging in his eyes from growing.

 

“What?” She asked, pushing her head forward like she was trying to hear better.

 

“I haven’t, we haven’t hung out in a while. Did he give in to the thoughts? I know he could be, uhm, I know he didn’t want to be alive sometimes,” Josh looked to the floor as he felt a tear fall down his cheek.

 

“Tyler, what? Who are you?” She asked finally, a slight hint of panic in her voice. 

 

“Josh? How could you not know that?” He asked, confused how his own mother could not know that.

 

“Baby, Josh died two months ago, you’re Tyler,” she tried but he continued to shake his head.

 

“My name is Josh, I don’t know where Tyler is but I’m not him. Mom, how could you not recognize me?” He heard his voice crack and felt the tears slip down his face again. 

 

“Not recognize you? Of course I do! You’re my son, you’re Tyler, I-” she stopped talking, her words clogging her throat. He started to back out of the room, watching his mother as she stared brokenly at him, “Josh is dead, Tyler.” He shook his head.

 

“Tyler, please,” she whispered but he wasn’t Tyler.

 

He turned and ran down the hallway and up the stairs, not stopping until he reached the bathroom.

 

He stood in front of the mirror, looking at what was reflected back.

 

The brown eyes were rimmed with red, there was puffy skin around it and tears marking both cheeks. The rest though was wrong, it looked wrong and felt wrong and nothing was right.

 

“My name is Josh, I’m Josh,” but his voice broke over the name because suddenly the voice sounded wrong. It was too high, it wasn’t his voice. The face wasn’t his face.

 

He reached up to run his hands through his hair and the mirror matched him. The mirror ran his fingers through short brown hair but Josh felt the curly hair that was always there. But the longer he ran his fingers through his hair the less curly it felt and the flatter it felt. Flat and short and plain brown. He ran his hands down his face and to his nose. In the mirror there wasn’t a ring there and for a second he felt the cold metal but then it was gone and it was just skin. 

 

He looked in the mirror and he saw Tyler staring back but he wasn’t Tyler, he really wasn’t.

 

Josh ran down the stairs and swiped his keys off the counter. His mother made a few attempts to get him to stop but he dodged all of them, running for the door. 

 

His hands were shaking as he started his car and his mind was empty. He didn’t know what to think or what to feel. He didn’t know anything as he drove down the road. He was going too fast and some part of his brain screamed to slow but the other part didn’t register or didn’t care.

 

He wasn’t sure if he swerved or the other car swerved.

  
There was a crash and the screech of metal and suddenly there was pain, an intense pain that left him screaming. After that it was black.

**Author's Note:**

> you can yell at me on kik at spoopydun or tumblr at [sp00pydun](sp00pydun.tumblr.com) or even on ask at [tbsaga](ask.fm/tbsaga) or comment and make me feel cool.
> 
> can you see how desperate im getting at your attention?


End file.
